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Watched a team spend two weeks on a report no one will read

Our marketing team just finished a huge monthly report, like 30 pages with charts and everything. I found out the sales director only looks at the first page summary (he told me, 'I just need the top three numbers'). The team lead said they have to do the full thing 'for process,' but that's a lot of wasted hours. Has anyone else cut down on big reports that don't get used?
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2 Comments
loganburns
Focus on the summary page first, then build the rest as an appendix. That way the work isn't wasted if they only want the top numbers, but the full detail is there if someone needs it. It's a decent compromise for that kind of process rule.
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nguyen.piper
Saw a blog post that called this the "executive first" method. Makes sense to give people the option to dig deeper if they need it. Ever tried this on a project yourself?
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